Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-02-21
want to ask him something very par

She painted so in saying these few
words that to her mother it seemed
anything but a good omen.
ASK, little sister, ask, and he'll
be sure so hear you, wherever he is.
He just can answer, some people
say, as easy from one place as anoth-
er," Ralph told her.
Mamma, if you'll promise not to
tell, I'll just let you hear what want
to say, Ralph wont mind; perhaps
he'll know by and by
All this was said at intervals as
she drew her mother down and whis-
pered her simple, child-like prayer !;
''Please, dear God, make me well,
and let me stay with Ralph and
mamma as long as you can. | heard
the doctor say perhaps I'd have to
90 away. Ralph's gone without his
tools to give me my dolly. Won't
you give 'em to him some way, and
we will trust and love YOU evermore.
For Jesus sake, Amen"
II believe God will hear you, my
darling her mother whispered as
Tress had finished. Il couldn't have
asked it as you did. God likes to
hear little children, and loves to an
swer their prayers. But if you stay
with us, Tress, what them" she ques-
toned.
''Oh, I'll be good to you and
Ralph I'll work and earn money and
give him his tools if he don't get 'em
before You know I've asked Jesus
about it. Perhaps he'll do it, and
perhaps he wont; we'll see.'
Little Tress returned to life again
after that simple, earnest prayer.
The loving Father did hear it, and
answered her in her own sweet way.
AS day by day Ralph saw the
spirit of the Master in the life of
Tress, a sense of a Saviour's love
dawned on him, and though several
years her senior, she had taught
him a lesson of trust, such as he had
never before known.
No small sister could enter into
the life of another more than Tress
did into Ralph's as she got well.
The sacrifice of the tools that he
might brighten the life then hanging
by thread was never forgotten by
her. Some one had heard of it, and
some one had heard, too, of Tress'
earnest prayer. In course of time
there came to the door of their SIM
pie cottage a good sized box of tools,
much larger and finer than Ralph
could ever have bought for himself,
besides a box of choice oil paints,
and these gifts were accompanied. by
a note to Ralph and Tress. Some
body must have known all about it,
Tress said, and she was right.
Day by day the child helped Ralph
in planning and fitting and making,
and by and by he let her try his col
ors, and somehow she learned to use
them better than he did, until by
study and effort she sat down as an
artist, steady and patient in pursu-
ing her work as Ralph was himself.
Tress gave him no common affec-
ton. and he in return watched her
maturing life with the greatest pride,
thinking always of the good God
who had spared her to him, and al
lowed her out of the purity of her
own character, to so soften and re-
fine his.
From the old routine came new
and blessed development as the years
went by, and when they had both
become famous, he as an architect,
and she as painter, there was not
day that Tress did not try to bear
some 'Ecross of love- for Ralph, |
even as he had borne it for her in |
his boyhood, when he sacrificed his
lOng-desired tools to cheer her droop-
ing spirit. We may not measure a
sacrifice by its apparent value, or
even by its results as we see them
But an act of self-denying love is
never lost and does not our Father
bend to listen to the prayer of faith
from infant lips?